Green Line Extension to Medford & Union Sq

Aaaand...here goes the GLX shutdown for 4 weeks starting Aug 22.

www.bostonglobe.com

MBTA to close Green Line north of Government Center for 4 weeks - The Boston Globe

The partial Green Line closure will begin Aug. 22, four days after the Orange Line shuts down for a month beginning the evening of Aug. 19. The opening of the Medford branch of the Green Line extension has been put off until late November.
www.bostonglobe.com www.bostonglobe.com

edit:

I posted at the same time as Teban but their link has better information.

Teban54 said:
MBTA just announced that the Medford branch will open in late November.

Shuttle buses will also replace Government Center-Union Square from August 22 to September 18.
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eber said:
Aaaand...here goes the GLX shutdown for 4 weeks starting Aug 22.

www.bostonglobe.com

MBTA to close Green Line north of Government Center for 4 weeks - The Boston Globe

The partial Green Line closure will begin Aug. 22, four days after the Orange Line shuts down for a month beginning the evening of Aug. 19. The opening of the Medford branch of the Green Line extension has been put off until late November.
www.bostonglobe.com www.bostonglobe.com

edit:

I posted at the same time as Teban but their link has better information.
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From MBTA's official announcement:
Adjustments to the overhead wire on the East Cambridge Viaduct that will eliminate a temporary 10 mph speed restriction, allowing trolleys to operate at the system’s designed speed of 25 mph on a permanent basis. The higher speed is necessary to maintain proper schedule intervals as five new Medford Branch stations are added to the system.
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This will be a huge improvement.
 
Another quote from the official announcement:

Scheduled activities include:
  • Adjustments to the overhead wire on the East Cambridge Viaduct that will eliminate a temporary 10 mph speed restriction, allowing trolleys to operate at the system’s designed speed of 25 mph on a permanent basis. The higher speed is necessary to maintain proper schedule intervals as five new Medford Branch stations are added to the system.
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Looks like that confirms this post from July where an operator claimed the speed restriction was due to the catenary not being installed properly during the viaduct rehabilitation
 
It's not clear to me, does anyone know if service between North Station and Government Center is suspended entirely or not? The T's statement keeps talking about the Union Square branch (the E) without making clear whether it's just the E that's bustituted or if the D's culled north of GC.
 
Brattle Loop said:
It's not clear to me, does anyone know if service between North Station and Government Center is suspended entirely or not? The T's statement keeps talking about the Union Square branch (the E) without making clear whether it's just the E that's bustituted or if the D's culled north of GC.
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Given that part of their reasoning for the GL closure is the Government Center Garage demolition, and the shuttle buses are going all the way south to Gov't Center, it looks like there won't be any GL service between North Station and Gov't Center
 
Scheduled activities include:
  • Adjustments to the overhead wire on the East Cambridge Viaduct that will eliminate a temporary 10 mph speed restriction, allowing trolleys to operate at the system’s designed speed of 25 mph on a permanent basis. The higher speed is necessary to maintain proper schedule intervals as five new Medford Branch stations are added to the system.
Click to expand...
Ok maybe I'm just being negative, but why in the world would this not be built appropriately the first time around so that some semblance of an acceptable level of service can be provided? 10 mph from union square to north station is slower than a bike and probably slower than a car stuck in traffic.. was like 8 months of delays not enough time to get brand new catenary to support more than 10mph?

And didn't we literally just spend months bustituting to rebuild the viaduct and it still only supports 25mph? Fine if they wanted to preserve the historical architecture but that can't come at the cost of actually usable infrastructure. Seattle just built a ton of viaducts for their new Link 1 Light rail and it runs at 55mph.

I just can't fathom how a brand new line needs infrastructure upgrades already, AND is a barely viable alternative to driving/biking.
 
sneijder said:
And didn't we literally just spend months bustituting to rebuild the viaduct and it still only supports 25mph? Fine if they wanted to preserve the historical architecture but that can't come at the cost of actually usable infrastructure. Seattle just built a ton of viaducts for their new Link 1 Light rail and it runs at 55mph.
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I’m confident that the operating speed on the viaduct was supposed to be up to 50mph. I can’t believe their ”fix” is implying it will only ever run at half that speed. Will the entire GLX be speed limited to 25?
 
sneijder said:
Ok maybe I'm just being negative, but why in the world would this not be built appropriately the first time around so that some semblance of an acceptable level of service can be provided?
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I fully share your angst and aspired-to standards, but let me attempt to analyze this with even more plausible reality heaped on:
-Because engineers and technicians are human, it is fair to expect honest mistakes...
-But that's why you do non-revenue testing for months in advance of opening (which they did)...
-And since the viaduct's 10mph restriction has been there since the get-go since GLX opened, observation suggests they DID catch the catenary problem during testing...
-Yet, for political/PR reasons, they felt compelled to push ahead with the dog-and-pony-show ribbon cutting without introducing a further delay...
-Which leads to the conclusion that being dishonest with the public and playing political games is what took priority here, not some warped sense of what acceptable service is.

sneijder said:
I just can't fathom how a brand new line needs infrastructure upgrades already.
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-Given the what I just described above, I can. The infrastructure was never right in the first place, and they likely knew it but pretended otherwise.

All of this said, it still doesn't explain why were not shooting for 50mph now, unless they know about more issues they're not telling us about and have switched to a different classic PR tactic of "aim low, so as to minimize more negative surprises"
 
sneijder said:
Ok maybe I'm just being negative, but why in the world would this not be built appropriately the first time around so that some semblance of an acceptable level of service can be provided? 10 mph from union square to north station is slower than a bike and probably slower than a car stuck in traffic.. was like 8 months of delays not enough time to get brand new catenary to support more than 10mph?
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FWIW the 10mph speed restriction was only over the Lechmere viaduct (over the Charles river); the newly-built railroad past the viaduct doesn't have this issue, and the Union Sq branch is generally 20-35mph (except when going over switches or on steep grades).

Badusername said:
I’m confident that the operating speed on the viaduct was supposed to be up to 50mph. I can’t believe their ”fix” is implying it will only ever run at half that speed. Will the entire GLX be speed limited to 25?
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Some parts of the Union Sq branch are 35mph, and when I was going by the Medford branch on the commuter rail the other day, I saw a sign for 40mph at one point
 
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Okay, wire installed incorrectly have been answered several times now. Can anyone give a more-than-speculative answer to why the fix is only going to be 25 mph?

Hell, we are gaslighting ourselves as several commented 25 mph was the design. I’m glad EDE remembers the technical docs.
 
I appreciate the likes, but if none of us actually knows, then I think we should be trying to get someone. Can the State Rep answer? Can we get Transit Matters to inquire (some of us are active members, right?)? Do anyone know a reporter who can email the LBattiston email at the bottom of the press release and not just be a rando with no standing?

Whatever the answer is - barring the answer is really just "aim low, so as to minimize more negative surprises", which implies they do plan to build it to 50 MPH - barring that answer, then it should be an outrage and a demand to build what was promised - especially since they just delayed GLX even more. Catenary sounds like a contractor mistake and thus it shouldn't just be settled "okay, fix it to 25 MPH then you all can disband". I fear imagining we reach to November and we finally see GLX open (maybe) and even in its newest state, it will ride out at a speed barely faster than I can bike (albeit briefly and with gravity). And we're just gonna accept that as that's just the norm - no outrage or anything, even celebrate... for the rest our lives?

We don't know the answer, we really should be getting our advocacy groups and reps on it. Of course, we have so many damn "fires" right now we are barely blinking. I guess when a whole half of a Green Line is gonna shut down with the Orange Line, it's we're can't track all the things to be outraged about.
 
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bigpicture7 said:
-Which leads to the conclusion that being dishonest with the public and playing political games is what took priority here, not some warped sense of what acceptable service is.
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This is what KILLS me.
The MBTA has no standard for what acceptable service is, so as long as a train is technically on the tracks and going >1 mph, hey, that's service!
I am hoping for a long, multi-year period of stringent FTA oversight to force the MBTA into becoming a real transit agency.
 
Keep in mind design speed does not indicate actual operation speed. Many Interstate Highways have design speeds well above there actual posted speed. Such as design speed being 75-80 MPH but actual posted being 55 or 65. In the engineering world you need factors of safety. Have to protect against the doofus who pushes the pedal to the metal and hires a lawyer.
 
reno said:
Keep in mind design speed does not indicate actual operation speed. Many Interstate Highways have design speeds well above there actual posted speed. Such as design speed being 75-80 MPH but actual posted being 55 or 65. In the engineering world you need factors of safety. Have to protect against the doofus who pushes the pedal to the metal and hires a lawyer.
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True, but there's no way that a safety factor should result in a maximum of 50% of the design speed stated in the GLX contract documents on a closed system with specially-trained operators. (Not to mention on a line that sees higher speeds than 25 in a number of areas.)
 
Fun fact that I just realized: We are now past the days of E trains running to Union Square.
  • The E branch is temporarily closed during August 6-21, and Union Square is served by Reservoir short-turns.
  • No service between Union Square and Government Center from August 22 to September 18.
  • When GLX reopens on Sep 19, D trains will serve Union Square, while E trains will begin non-revenue service to Medford/Tufts with revenue service to Lechmere. (Source: BSRA, haven't seen this elsewhere.)
 
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